King Arthur

Continuity mistake: When we see Tristan's bird for the first time, the shots changes between close up and distance. In the distance shot you see both of Tristan's arms out in the air, but in the close ups both before and after, it's only one arm out in the air.

Revealing mistake: At the beginning, when the Woads are attacking the Bishop's Carriage, Lancelot is hitting one of the Woads. The sword isn't even touching the Woad.

Visible crew/equipment: When Arthur is riding with his knights in the open field, there's a front shot of the cavalry line. When the camera lowers down to where we can see the legs of the horses, the trail of the camera stage is visible on the ground.

Factual error: The major Saxon invasion (the one we see in the movie) was set around 400 A.D. After a short time in the film, the battle of Badon Hill starts. This battle is thought to have occurred around 500 A.D. Arthur must be VERY old.

Audio problem: When the Woads attack in the beginning of the movie, after the knights have pretty much won the day, Bors hold up his fist knives, sticks out his tounge, and yells a sort-of war victory yell which sounds rather comedic. At the end of the movie when the knights and their horses charge into the Saxons out of the fog, you can hear Bors' exact same yell once again.

Continuity mistake: In the scene by Arthur's father's grave, Guinevere places her hand on Arthur's cheek. As the camera shot moves from front to back you see her thumb move from on his cheek to off again several times from one shot to the next.

Factual error: The artillery in this movie are counterweight trebuchets, a type powered by a falling weight. The Romans had many spring and torsion powered artillery, such as scorpions, ballistas and catapults, but did not have trebuchets. By the 3rd century BC the Chinese had the "torsion trebuchet", similar to a trebuchet but powered by men hauling on ropes instead of a falling weight; it didn't reach Europe until the late sixth century. The pure counterweight trebuchet as shown in the movie sometime in the fifth century AD probably didn't exist before the late 12th century and the first one in Britain was built in 1216 AD.

Factual error: The Emperor ruled the Roman Empire, not the Pope. Neither he nor one of his bishops would have any authority over Roman provinces or Roman soldiers.

Necrothesp

Audio problem: When the Woads are surrounding Arthur and his knights, one of the knight is shouting something, but nothing comes out of his mouth.

Factual error: The scene in which the two armies confront each other on the frozen lake contains several flaws. First, when thick ice is broken with a sharp object like a pickaxe, you merely get a hole through the ice, it will only fragment into large pieces if it is thin. Clearly, this is not the case, as the armies are able to walk on it. Second, ice does not shatter in the way depicted in the film, with cracks travelling outwards a great distance, but just crumbles around the area where force is applied. Third, if cracks did radiate outwards, they would propagate sideways and backwards as well as forwards (like glass does when it is punctured by a small, sharp object), meaning that both armies would end up falling through the ice.

Factual error: Two things are wrong about the trebuchets. While Romans did have siege engines, like the catapult and the ballista, the trenches apparently is a Chinese invention. In any case, it wasn't introduced in Europe until the Middle Ages. Also a trebuchet is a complicated device, much more difficult to operate then it looks. Firing it is easy, but hitting a target certainly isn't. (With modern reconstructions, even when using ballistic calculations, it still takes days of practice to get to a point of some accuracy.) When the Roman army left, the trebuchets were completely useless. In the final battle the Woads nevertheless use them to great effect - impossible.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where king Arthur is on a horse walking across a frozen lake, you can see a huddle of camera equipment in the background. The next shot is from that spot.

legionaire

Revealing mistake: At the start of the film when the Bishops convoy is ambushed by the Woads Arthur stabs his sword at the ambusher, totally missing but the Woad still falls as if stabbed.

Revealing mistake: Despite at least two days of near blizzard conditions there is never more than a few inches of snow on the ground. The amount of snow we see falling should have left well over a foot of snow.

Continuity mistake: In the shot of Bors (during Venora's singing), Galahad is shown in the back with Gawain being the closest knight to him, a stream directly behind, and a wall far behind. Cut to Lancelot, then to Tristan who is near a wall, then to Galahad with Tristan right behind him and the wall closer.

Audio problem: In the ice battle scene, after the Knights unsuccessfully attempt to make the Saxon army cluster to break the ice, Arthur tells the Knights "It's not going to break". But if you look at Arthur, his lips aren't moving when he says it.

Continuity mistake: When Cerdic calls for the main body of the Saxons to go through the door Cynric is shown drawing his sword, waving it over his head and yelling. In the next shot seconds later his sword is sheathed and he is walking calmly beside his father.

Arthur: Pelagius told me once: "There is no worse death than the end of hope."
Guinevere: You and I are not the polite people that live in poems. We are blessed and cursed by our times.

More quotes from King Arthur

Trivia: One thing was digitally edited for the promotional posters (the trio of pictures of Guinevere, Lancelot and Arthur): Keira Knightly's (Guinevere) bust was increased purely to attract more viewers.

More trivia for King Arthur

Question: Throughout the movie, the Sarmatian knights shout the word "rus" at each other; Bors in particular says it a lot. Does anyone know what significance this word has or what it means?

Answer: At the beginning of the film, we learn that young Sarmatians were drafted into the Roman military for a period of fifteen years. As the Romans lead young Lancelot away from his family, his father yells 'Rus!', the war-cry that is repeated throughout the film. 'Sarmatian' was the name the Romans gave the Rus, descendants of Norsemen who had settled in lands that still bear their name today: the River Rus (in modern Romania), Russia, Belarus, and Ruthenia. Culturally and geographically, these people were the Rus. So when they were inducted into the Roman army, their war cry of 'Rus!' identified them as being fearsome Rus/Sarmatian warriors, warned their opponents that the Rus were coming for them, celebrated their cultural identity, and symbolized their hope of returning home to the Rus. In the film Arthur honors them by yelling it back, signifying the unusual bond between leader and soldier exemplified in the Round Table, Arthur's respect for the Rus warriors, and his commitment to the idea that all men are born free and have the right to their own lives and beliefs.

Rus were a people combined of Vikings traveling between Denmark and Byzantium, and Slavic people. Sarmatians were before that, but from the same area and did intermingle with Slavs, so their blood is more than likely in there.

Rus was not from Denmark.

RUS is the word for Vikings who ruled the city of Kyev, and by the Ryrik family which assembled many Slavic tribes into "Kyev Rus", which is the name of state and foundation of modern Russia. Russia" as a ethnonim is similar to Rus but is not. Russian call themselves "I am Rus, I am ruski", and their language "ruski", but their country is "Russia" and they are RussiaNS, old name coresponding to Latin word "Ratio" (sense, mind) Race -of people...Sarmatians are Serbs, Serbs are Slavs and old Russians.

Ruthenia was the Roman name for what is now Ukraine. The main part of Rus i.e. Kyivan Rus is actually the land and people who are now known as Ukrainians. The Sarmatians were our ancestors.

Answer: Except the Norseman/Rus came much later than Arthur's time...so that's not it. Though more to the point is the Sarmatian /Scythian relationship and their dynamic with the Romans in respect to this timeline.

Norsemen invaded Britain in the 8th century but were around much earlier. Romans recruited from foreign lands and could possibly have recruited from tribes earlier than this. Rus vikings were first recorded around the 8th century but could also have existed prior to this. It is accepted that Viking history was from 800 AD. However the legendary king Arthur was allegedly invented by a 12th century french poet. The Roman Lucius Artorius Caster died around the end of the 2nd century. So it's all speculative.

Answer: Rus in Latin means country or land. The whole movie was based on winning freedom. Fighting and dying to win them their home, their country. Arturius chooses Britain as his land and his countrymen to defend. So Rus in this context, being they are Roman, their battle cry means 'for country', not Rome but Britain. For home.

Answer: They do not yell "rus", they shout as "rochs". In fact at first the pronunciation in the movie shows that. "Rochs" is a Sarmatian term, in fact it means "light" in modern Ossetian, the only remnants of the Sarmatians in modern world. There were three major Sarmatian tribes in history: Alans, Rochsalans (Rochs-alans or Latinized Roxalans) and Iazyges. Second one bears that prefix, and historically not Roxalans but Iazyges were forced to become mercenaries for Rome. So with that yell there is a little mistake in the movie but this is tolerable at the end.

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